Trump’s harsh rhetoric may put Cuba in tough diplomatic spot

@PatriciaMazzei

Nearly two years after President Barack Obama undertook the biggest change in U.S.-Cuba policy in half a century, the island’s communist regime suddenly finds itself at a new diplomatic crossroads, awaiting a President-elect Donald Trump who has increasingly embraced the harsh rhetoric of Obama’s most forceful Cuba critics.

Whether Trump will immediately undo the executive actions that restored relations between the two countries remains unclear. But the language adopted by Trump and his closest advisers in the hours following Fidel Castro’s death and over the weekend, and one of the incoming president’s recent transition hires, suggest Trump might be serious about punishing Cuba for not doing more in return after the U.S. lifted many of its travel, banking and commercial sanctions.

Though Obama's overtures weren't conditioned on any specific concessions by Cuba, the Cuban government has not shown much willingness to reciprocate by loosening its grip on civil society. In the face of a Trump presidency, that could prove to have been a missed opportunity to build good will.

“President-elect Trump is going to be looking for some movement in the right direction in order to have any sort of deal with Cuba,” Reince Priebus, Trump’s White House chief of staff, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I mean, it can’t just be nothing and then you get total and complete cooperation from the United States. There has to be something, and what that something is... is yet to be determined.”

Ever the negotiator, Trump has threatened to end all ties with the island so that, as president, he can extract some sort of concession from Cuba. The Obama actions Trump opposes have given him leverage to use against the island.